The Curse aka Gerard and the Seven Maidens
by petrelli heiress
Summary: Gerard is a young prince under a curse. On top of that he has an evil mirror after him and has to take care of his baby sister. Thank the powers that be that seven maidens are helping him...at least he thinks it's good.
1. Prologue the first

Prologue the first

Prologue the first

Picture a dirty-in-a-good-way room. The furniture is falling apart, not because of neglect but because of lack of money to buy new furniture. The walls and floor are made of rough, shoddily-made oak planks. In the centre of the room stands a table, one of which legs is positioned on one or two large books. On top of the table is a large book, rather like the ones helping the table to continue to stand. There is one exception. This book looks old and archaic: on its page is written a strange dead language that no one but the owner understands. Not that the book could be completely understood.

An old woman peers through misty spectacles at this antiquated writing, mixing absentmindedly a small glass vial. Her finger traces the words and finds the passage needed.

She looks up suddenly as though hearing a sound. Her eyes are sharp and gave the feeling of never being confused or muddled. They are a cold, harsh grey that yet held a type of kindness, although the kindness one often finds in gods.

The old woman speaks to thin air, her voice as coarse and jagged as her eyes. These are the words she spoke:

Men are fickle

Attack a girl

Men are cowards

Run from old women

Thus a curse is laid

On the greatest of men

There will be

The prince of this realm will know

What it feels like to be shunned

For what he looks like

A monster to some

The curse will be broken

When two men who are boys

Are felled by a lone tree

And the greatest of all men

Realises the greatest of all things

The lips of the girl

The ears and eyes of a cat

Seven maidens

All must come together

For the curse to be broken.

The old woman then brings a small bowl from behind the giant book and tips the contents of the vial inside. Taking a pinch of black cats' hair she drops them into the bowl. Swirling the mixture absentmindedly with a lone finger she then brings another smaller bowl from behind the book. This bowl is filled with pure white snow. It follows the way of the black cats' hair. Again she swirls. Lastly she takes a knife and cuts her hand along her lifeline, adding three drops of blood to the mixture. With another swirl the mixture is complete.

Again the old woman speaks:

Hair as black as ebony

Skin as white as snow

Three drops of blood

Will warn the mother

Of what is to come

The curse is complete

So mote it be

On the last word the contents of the bowl spin into a small cloud above the bowl. This cloud pauses for a moment, as if to get its bearings. Then it disappears into the west in the direction of the capital of Duffland, Infia.


	2. Prologue the second

Prologue the first

Prologue the second

Once upon a time there lived a King and a Queen. On their wedding night they hoped to conceive an heir to the throne. Their wish was granted nine months later with the birth of a son, whom they called Gerard. Unfortunately for the royal couple six months before a witch had put a curse upon the child and thus when he was born he had the ears and eyes of a cat.

The king was distraught at what he saw as a veiled threat to his manhood. Openly he blamed his wife for his misfortune and lost himself in the memory-erasers known as alcohol and loose women. Five years after the birth of his deformed son he took on a full time mistress, known to everyone as Madame Undine.

The queen however took one look at her son and was overcome with love for him. She at first pitied her child but decide that pity was of no use in this kind of situation. Along with her son she was locked up in the western most towers where she and her son lived happily, with the King visiting them every Saturday afternoon and spending the night with his wife.

She raised her son on fairy stories, his favourite of which detailed the adventures of a girl with the nose of a pig. She taught him that his ears and eyes which his father found so loathsome were in fact his best features because they showed the good people from the bad.

"Does that mean that Daddy is a bad people?" he asked. The Queen tried to think of a suitable response while trying to grapple with what she thought was an unreasonable dislike for her husband.

"No. Your Daddy's just confused. He doesn't understand that your ears and eyes are gifts. And they are, Gerard. You must always remember that. They are gifts."

She was successfully able to halt his questions for another night.

Because of the King's Saturday evening visits it wasn't long before the Queen gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, twelve years after the birth of her first child. However exactly a week after the girl was born the Queen came down with a mysterious fever and died soon afterwards.

Contrary to what you might think, the King was utterly destroyed by this. To console himself he immediately married Madame Undine. He then drowned himself in booze and her caresses.

The child, named Jessica, meanwhile was given to a succession of nurses who were eventually all fired by Madame Undine, who one night brought the child to her brother in the western most towers. Gerard raised his sister just as his mother had raised him.

Being locked up in a tower with only your baby sister and a succession of maidservants who brought food could be stifling for a teenage boy. But Gerard believed, up until he turned eighteen, that by staying where he was he was somehow fulfilling what his mother wanted for him

An event that happened on his eighteenth birthday would change everything.


	3. Chapter the first: Surprising Events

Chapter the first:

Surprising Events

Gerard woke up on his twenty first birthday feeling exactly the same as he had yesterday. Bone-numbingly tired. His daily routine consisted of getting up at the crack of dawn to make his sister's breakfast from the ingredients the maidservants had left at the door the night before; getting the lessons ready for the day; waking up a nine year old girl who did not want to get up; getting her to eat her breakfast (one of the most difficult tasks) and make her bed; sitting down to read her her favourite fairy story, 'Beauty and the Beast'; trying to teach a stubborn girl, who insisted she "didn't need to know how to weed and white to be a princess," to read and write; reading her another fairy story of her choice; getting lunch ready and hoping she would eat it; reading yet another fairy story of her choice; showing her the kingdom from the window and pointing out all of the details that the Queen had pointed out to him and getting her to memorise them; getting dinner ready and hoping she would eat it; reading another fairy story of her choice; and finally tucking her into bed when she doesn't want to go to sleep.

Many mothers will know how he felt having been through the same experience, with variations. For those who don't or can't imagine I will explain. He felt as though his head would explode every time she tried to convince him that he should try and find Cinderella to marry her because she "just doesn't trust that prince." When he caught himself rubbing the bridge of his nose he knew he was in trouble. He found himself wishing that she would just disappear and then berated himself severely for even thinking that traitorous thought.

Birthdays were never special as they had been with his mother. In fact they weren't like those ones at all since it seemed that his mother had been the only to remember that he had a birthday. His sister always remember a week or two after the fact and tried her best, which was actually very good for a nine year old, to make that day a special one for him, i.e. she woke up even earlier than he did and made him breakfast; she didn't talk back and tried her best to learn what he was teaching her; she cooked both lunch and dinner, although not very well; and she tucked herself into bed.

His father never remembered his birthdays. Sometimes Gerard thought that the King had forgotten he even had children. He heard from the maidservant's gossip of his father's activities and recalled the face of the woman who had brought Jessica to him five years and four months ago. He wondered if she was the one they called Madame Undine in such derogatory tones. He did not hate his father, thanks to the Queen and if someone had asked him what he thought of Madame Undine he would have vaguely recollected that woman who had brought Jessica to him and said she was "sort of nice."

Thus he knew that his twenty first birthday would be exactly as the day before had been. And it was…until lunch. When he went to collect the food beside the door an old woman stood with the food in a large basket. Unlike the maidservants this woman did not run. Although her face was harsh and lined with mile upon mile of dark crevasses he felt safe in her presence.

The old woman handed him the basket of food and said, "I knew your mother, boy. She would not want you to be cooped up here."

She then turned and left. Gerard heard the key turn in the lock as it did every day. He shook the encounter off and placed the basket on the table. Peering under the white and black chequered cloth he saw bushels of food, far too much for just one meal. Taking the entire cloth off, he spied, underneath a whole chicken, a bundle of papers.

Curious he took them out and read:

**My dear son, **

**If you are reading this letter then it is your twenty first birthday and I am no longer with you. Do not stay in that place a moment longer. It is not safe for you. I wish that I could be there with you and show you the way. But I can't. The old woman who gave you this letter will also give you food that should last you and your sister awhile. I also had a key made if this would ever come to be. And if you are reading this then it has. **

**Know that I love you and your sister very much. Take care of her.**

**Love,**

**Your mother, Queen Margaret**

Gerard, upon closer inspection, found a small key hidden under the bananas. He thought for a moment and tried to process what had just happened. He couldn't. But there was one thing that he was sure of: they were leaving.

He went to fetch his sister. She didn't like getting up earlier than she was used to, and hid under her duvet.

"Come on, Jesse. You have to get up!" He pulled at her legs and she held onto the bedpost with two surprisingly strong hands.

"Why?" Her voice was strained from the exertion it took to hold on.

"We have to leave as soon as possible, before the maidservant comes with lunch."

Jesse let go of the bedpost and Gerard hit the floor with a loud thump. She turned around to face him, a completely astonished look on her angelic face.

"What?!"

Gerard pushed his hair out of the way and looked up at her. "We have to leave as soon as possible, before the maidservant comes with lunch. I think I made myself perfectly clear—"

Jesse grabbed his face in both her hands and brought it up until he was eye to eye with her. "Don't you go being sarcastic with me, Gerard. You give me the plain truth."

Gerard sighed and took his face out of her hands. "I am telling the truth. Now, you're always going on and on about wanting to see the world and have adventures like in the fairy stories so this is your chance. Grab it."

Jesse scrunched her face up. "But I've…we've never been outside these rooms. What will we do? Where will we go?" Her voice was so quiet he had to bend down to hear it.

He was silent for a minute. After all he didn't know where they would go. Forget about what they were going to do. That wasn't even a topic for discussion, although it probably would benefit from some. He decided to ask her where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. It was the best idea he could come up with.

"Well, what do you want to do? Where do you want to go? I'm letting you choose."

Her green eyes lit up with excitement; she'd never been asked about what she wanted to do before. Her face acquired a serious look. She rummaged under her bed until she pulled out a large piece of paper, gone yellow with age. Handing it to him she waited in expectant silence.

He perused the paper and raised his eyebrows in surprise. It detailed a path leading through the nearby Laken Forest, which was supposed to be filled with all manners of enchanted beasts and powerful sorcerers. The path twisted through the forest, coming out on the far south side, and making its way into Barbaria, abruptly ending at the edge of the paper.

He whistled. It was a better idea than any he had come up with. "Laken Forest it is. Now you get ready. We're going on an adventure."

After that getting Jesse out of bed was easy.

About a half hour later Gerard and Jesse emerged from a door near the bottom of the western most tower and made their way quickly across the dew covered lawn and over the cracked stone wall. It was still dark and Jesse frequently tripped over potholes made by the gardener on his quest for the gophers he was sure resided on the grounds. Once over the wall the walk through the deserted town was a piece of cake.

As soon as they had reached the outskirts of the forest Gerard glanced back at what had been, for twenty one years, his home. He wouldn't miss it.


	4. Chapter the second: Mirror, Mirror

Chapter the second:

Mirror, Mirror

Once the maidservant had run screaming down the corridor and into the kitchen to announce that the royal children had disappeared, the palace became a harem of panicking men and women.

When the King found out what had happened he immediately took control of the situation. He did not want to see his only children go the way of his wife. He sent out thousands of search parties, helped by the town's people who did not want anything to happen to their future rulers.

However after six months searching turned up nothing the King began to fall apart and it was only at the urge of Madame Undine, who was heavily pregnant at the time and prone to fits of sentimentality, that he continued the search and even joined it himself.

At the end of a year and a day the search was called off. The country was thrown uneasy times, since most of its people did not want to see Madame Undine's girl child on the throne. The King, meanwhile, had fallen into a pit of despair, as clichéd as that sounds. Not very stabile mentally after the death of his wife, whom he had only realised after her death was the love of his life, he took the one small step into madness. Ironically, Madame Undine then put him away in the western most towers where he had locked his wife and children up all those years ago.

She visited him every day but it was not long before he started to hallucinate and became increasingly more deluded.

Now it is time to rewind a bit: the new Queen had a mirror, which was given to her by her sweetheart, the Prince of Barbaria. It was a way they could communicate across vast distances. Madame Undine had come to Duffland specifically to seduce the King, marry him, poison him and then marry her sweetheart, the Prince. Unfortunately for her she developed affection for the King and postponed the poisoning of the King.

The mirror had a personality all of its own which, unbeknownst to Madame Undine and her Prince, thrived on disaster, death and despair. It tried to create as much mischief as it could by twisting the minds of the Prince and Madame Undine, so that they would have no compunction to kill.

The Prince, unlike Madame Undine, had a mind ripe for that kind of twisting. His parents, neither of them particularly dumb, could see onto what path he was heading and decided to make his younger brother heir to the throne. The mirror had convinced him that he could get his own kingdom if he manipulated his once beloved Madame Undine into seducing the King and handing him the kingdom of Duffland for his very own.

Madame Undine, on the other hand, was very hard for the mirror to manipulate. She was a pure good soul, for all the sins she had committed. So the mirror decided to take another route and drove her mad. It wrested her child from her and threw her into the beyond, helped her to miscarry when she fell pregnant again (for all his madness the King was still very virile) and told her that the Prince was dallying with her rival, Lady Margaret (which was true, he wasn't very faithful, and anyway the mirror could only speak the truth). By doing these three things, coupled with tiny seemingly insignificant things, it was able to drive her mad.


	5. Chapter the third: the Seven Maidens

Chapter the third:

The Seven Maidens

Gerard tried to pretend to Jesse, as they made their way through an increasingly darker forest, that it was still the fun and games it had been during the day but it became ever more difficult to come up with good games to take her mind off their surroundings.

Every time he stood on a twig, the sound crashed through the forest and, to his mind, told all the dangerous animals and unhinged criminals that he was sure habituated the forest where he and his sister were. In reality the sounds made by their footsteps scared a few birds who, being very stupid, forgot as soon as it had cessed.

They had been walking through for many hours when Gerard spotted a light shining through the trees. Hoping the light meant a warm bed and plenty of food instead of what he dreaded (that the light was that made by the fire of a gang of homicidal maniacs on the loose from the nearby asylum) he took Jesse by the hand and drew her through the forest into a small clearing.

Thankfully the clearing was not the headquarters of that imaginary gang of homicidal maniacs (since most homicidal maniacs can't stand each other). Instead a small cottage graced the clearing. The one word that would help you picture it was picturesque. The roof gently sloped into small eaves which Gerard could imagine water drifting languidly off during the rain. The door, situated in the middle of the front of the house, was a light blue and had a small latch, pretty ineffectual if anyone decided to rob the place. It was exactly as he had imagined the seven dwarves' cottage in _Snow White and the Seven Dwarves_.

He unlatched the door and entered quietly, holding Jesse's hand. "Hello?" he said. The cottage appeared to be empty. He glanced from side to side and advanced slowly into the house. "Hello?" he said, this time much louder. He turned to Jesse and shrugged.

Telling her to sit outside and not make any movement, he explored the cottage more thoroughly and was astonished at what he found. It really was almost exactly like the seven dwarves' cottage, except that the furniture was not small. However there was seven of everything. The second storey was much the same, containing seven beds and seven bedside tables.

After a long deliberation he went outside to get Jesse. He sat down beside her. "How do you feel about staying here?" he asked her. She said nothing so he turned to look at her and found that she had fallen asleep. Smiling softly he carried her inside and laid her out on one of the seven beds. He lay in the bed beside hers and drifted off to sleep, hoping that whoever lived here would be as kind as the seven dwarves had been to Snow White.

Unbeknownst to the prince, the cottage was owned by seven maidens, each one more beautiful than the last.

The eldest maiden's name was Penny and she was the local midwife, having learnt the trade from her mother. She was the most serious of the seven and, being the eldest, was their leader. And, you remember when I said that each one was more beautiful than the last? Well, this meant that Penny was also the ugliest of the seven maidens.

The second eldest was called Jasmine. She owned a small convenience store in the nearby town of Ellenton and was the most financially minded of the seven sisters. She took care of their finances as well as being the one they took their problems to, whether money related or not. Although she wasn't as ugly as Penny she wouldn't exactly win any beauty competitions either.

Georgiana, the third sister, was by far the most uncouth of the seven. She drank hard liquor, smoked heavily, swore constantly and was the quintessential tomboy. But then she'd have to be when she was a miner's apprentice and had to be able to survive in what was thought to be a men-only world. She was prettier than her two elder sisters but the best adjective to describe her would be homely. She preferred to be called George.

Hannah, the fourth sister, was the local glassblower's apprentice since from an early age she had had a fascination with all types of glass and her mother, being the local midwife, could get just about anything for her daughters, especially since she had delivered the glassblower a fine son. She was kind but absentminded, often found in front of a mirror smiling at her reflection.

Alyson and Jacqueline were the twins. They were both milkmaids, at the nearest farm, and were known throughout the forest and surrounding areas as flirts. Alyson was the more flighty one of the two while Jacqueline, known as Jacky, tried to make up for her sister's fickle nature by being very serious but more often than not was unable to keep up the charade and succumbed to her sister's wiles. They were both very beautiful but rarely noticed the effect they had on people.

The youngest, Marianne, was the most beautiful. However she was also the dirtiest, thanks to her apprenticeship to Ellenton's blacksmith. Since her beauty could be seen, even under all that soot, she was constantly bombarded by suitors and offers of marriage. She rarely put any stock in anything those suitors said and was often to be caught with a thoughtful expression on her angelic face. However, if you asked her what she was thinking about, you would be assailed by jargon and gobbledegook about her job.

All seven had lived in the cottage since they were born and had grown up surrounded by those self-same dark woods, which no longer held any terror for them. In fact most of the dangerous animals were more afraid of the maidens than the maidens were afraid of them.

When they returned home, one by one, they were much too tired to worry about where the extra blankets had disappeared to or why their food supply had been depleted. But when they ascended the stairs into the loft and discovered Gerard and his sister sleeping peacefully in their beds they were naturally a little stunned.

"What the–" George cried until she was silenced by Jasmine who dragged her downstairs and into the living room. The others followed silently.


End file.
